NEWS & DEALS

Inside Story.

February 2021 – On 25 January 2021, Andriy Nikiforov, Counsel at Kinstellar’s Kyiv office, spoke at a webinar organised jointly by the Banking, Finance and Insurance Committee and the Civil, Inheritance and Matrimonial Law Committee of the Ukrainian Bar Association (UBA). The event focused on the recent decisions of Ukraine’s Supreme Court regarding the debt obligations and resulting liabilities of spouses.

A majority of Ukrainian companies, both large and small, are closely held. Accordingly, when a Ukrainian company is struggling financially or embarking on an ambitious investment or acquisition project that stretches its financial resources, its lenders typically supplement the security package with a personal guarantee from the company's UBOs and/or directors.

Andriy moderated a discussion on the circumstances under which lenders should require both spouses to sign up to a joint personal guarantee, whether or not a spouse’s consent is required for the validity of the guarantee, and to what extent an asset co-owned with a non-guarantor spouse is off limits to satisfy a lenders’ claim from the Ukrainian law perspective.

The Ukrainian Bar Association is an all-Ukrainian public organisation founded in 2002. At present, the UBA has over six thousand members, including private legal practitioners, in-house legal counsel, notaries, judges, public officials, MPs and renowned legal scholars. There are currently 24 acting UBA committees tasked with the further development of the legal profession in Ukraine, improving legislation, building relationships with public authorities and contributing to public reforms. Andriy Nikiforov was re-elected as Chair of the Banking, Finance and Insurance Committee of the UBA in 2019 and heads the Committee until the end of 2021.

For more information, please contact Andriy Nikiforov, Counsel, at 

e-mail